


The House You Live In

by mascaret



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: Angst, Drama, Horror, Mystery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-26
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-11-05 03:53:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 13,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11005434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mascaret/pseuds/mascaret
Summary: When someone else succeeds in rescuing Agnes from Kirk before he can Reddington struggles to figure out who while Liz struggles to figure out why. Diverged from canon around episode 4.6. It's Mr. Kaplan's return played out a little differently than in the back half of season 4.





	1. A House Divided

**Author's Note:**

> A/N Most of this was written in a couple of days after 4.4 aired. Diverged from canon around episode 4.6 with the return of Agnes. As happy as I was for Mr. Kaplan that her rescuer didn't turn out to be a homicidal maniac ... I still maintain that there really isn't another practical reason to own leg irons. I chose to not put Archive Warnings because the violence, etc is kept pretty vague because that's not really what the story is meant to be about. If anyone needs the warnings leave a message and I can supply them.

 

Go first in the world, go forth with your fears  
Remember a price must be paid  
Be always too soon, be never too fast  
At the time when all bets must be laid  
Beware of the darkness, be kind to your children  
Remember the woman who waits  
And the house you live in will never fall down  
If you pity the stranger who stands at your gate

  
And he who is wise will not criticize   
When other men fail at the game   
Beware of strange faces and dark dingy places   
Be careful while bending the law   
And the house you live in will never fall down   
If you pity the stranger who stands at your door

-The House You Live In (abridged) Gordon Lightfoot

 

_The House You Live In_

_Chapter 1_

 

Reddington was giving orders. “Try to hold off on gunfire as long as you can. As soon as he hears the first shot Kirk will attempt to leave. We can't have him escaping again.”

No, not like he did in Cuba or Nova Scotia or Amsterdam or New York or -

“Liz?” Tom interrupted her train of thought.

Surely Kirk _had_ to be running out of hidey holes.

It had been more than two months and even more dead ends since Elizabeth had last seen her daughter on the web camera Kirk had set up for her.

Tom called her name again. “Elizabeth?”

Despondently, she responded. “It's been so long since she has seen us. Every night I go to sleep worrying, wondering if she will even remember me.”

She shrugged off Tom's attempt to touch her shoulder. Things had been strained between them since his botched rescue attempt.

She continued. “It's been so long, she's probably changed so much. Sometimes I wonder if I would even recognize her if I saw her on the street.”

“Liz -” Tom started to say something.

Reddington talked over him. “Lizzie, you would know her.” He sounded so sure, so confident as he repeated himself. “You would know. A mother doesn't ever forget her child.”

“You’re sure Agnes is in there with Kirk?” Elizabeth asked.

He nodded.

“This is it. This is really it?” Elizabeth pleaded.

Reddington promised her. “This is it.”

Reaching out, she squeezed Tom's hand. Elizabeth half sighed half begged. “We're going to get our baby back.”

Coming to the back of the van, Dembe interrupted. “Something's not right.”

As a group, they moved to where Baz and the others were assembled.

Baz expanded upon Dembe's concern. “I don't like it. They're not moving. What kind of a patrol doesn't patrol? ”

Dembe chimed in with more doubts. “Their relief shift should have come out by now. They haven't.”

Reddington frowned. “Tom, keep Elizabeth here.”

Elizabeth tried to protest. “You can't just -”

Reddington pumped the rifle in his hand. “- Everyone else, let's go. Remember - _hold off_ on your gunfire as long as you can.”

 

000

 

Baz sneaked up on one of Kirk's sentries. Leaning against the wall, the man appeared to have fallen asleep at his post. Heeding Red's order, using the butt of his gun, Baz struck him in the back of the head.

The man fell to the ground dead.

Quickly, Baz realized that it hadn't been the force of his blow that had killed him.

The already dead guard had been left there, posed like a doll to give someone a false sense of security.

 

OOOO

 

Seeing she had found the chain, he explained it for her. “It's for your own protection, darlin'. You're still weak and groggy. I couldn't let a delicate thing like you wander off on your own. We are _miles_ and _miles_ from the nearest town and these woods _aren't_ safe. You would never make it out on your own.”

That didn't explain why he had the chains in the first place. Or why when Mr. Kaplan had thus far been too weak to even sit up unassisted the metal was scrapped in places - as if someone had been pulling on the chain trying quite desperately to break free.

Keeping a straight face, Mr. Kaplan nodded. Her voice was hoarse, but even, as she thanked him for his consideration. “That was very thoughtful of you.”

She made no suggestion of him removing the chain now that he returned.

He made no offer.

 

_tbc_


	2. Home From the Forest

_Home From the Forest_

_OOO_

Over the com, they heard …

“They're dead, Red. They're all dead. Every single one of them.”

Thinking that was the all clear, Tom stopped fighting to hold Elizabeth back. They raced across the grounds and into the house.

 

_OOO_

_Jonestown._ That was Liz's first thought.

This was what it must have been like walking around after the Kool-aid.

Finding the room with Kirk in it, Liz put her hand to her mouth in horror. “Oh my God! Reddington, what did you do to him?!”

Unlike the others in the house who seemed to have gotten violently ill before dying, Kirk appeared to have just died violently.

Dembe defended Reddington. “We _found_ Kirk like this.”

Looking around the room, seeing all the medical equipment scattered about – far more than she had seen before for his routine blood transfusions - it looked like the setting of a mad scientist movie.

The wounds to Kirk's throat added to the feeling that they were in a horror movie.

The little inhuman paw prints tracked around his body in blood narrowed the sub-genre to monster. Liz's best guess would have been werewolf.

Kirk appeared to have been running for ta door.

“How long?” Reddington demanded.

Kneeling down next to Kirk, Baz shook his head. “Red, he's stone cold. Who ever did this has been gone for some time.”

Liz just stared. Given the empty bag hanging on the IV pole, it looked like Kirk had been in the process of receiving another of his transfusions - only now all of that blood and all his own blood were pooled on the floor around him.

Dembe was the one to tell her. “When we got inside, Kirk and everyone else was already dead. By the looks of it, except for Kirk, it was some kind of poison.”

Liz had already surmised as much.

“Not _everyone._ Not Agnes.” Liz insisted. “Where is Agnes?! Where is my daughter?”

Reddington shook his head. “She isn't here.”

“No! She has to be!” Rushing from room to room, stepping around bodies, Liz searched for her daughter. Tom and Reddington followed after her. Dembe followed after Reddington.

“Lizzie! Listen to me!”

Red tried to grab her, but Elizabeth tore free and up the stairs to keep trying doors.

“Lizzie stop! We already searched.”

But she didn't stop - not until she found the nursery.

Seeing the empty crib, Liz lurched and had to grab onto the crib railings to stay standing up. “She's _not_ here!”

 

_OOO_

“I'm sorry, Lizzie.”

“You promised me!”

“I know.” Red acknowledged. It broke his heart to have disappointed her again.

Dembe spotted it first in the otherwise empty crib. On their initial sweep of the room, his men had been focused on finding a baby. “Raymond ...”

Red just stared. It wasn't that he didn't immediately recognize them – he just couldn’t bring himself to say it aloud as Lizzie did.

“Wait - those glasses … one of the lenses is broken, but _those_ are Mr. Kaplan's glasses.”

Tom picked up on Dembe's expression. Liz did not.

“Why didn't you tell me that Mr. Kaplan was going in before us?” Lizzie sounded so relieved as she sighed. “Mr. Kaplan has Agnes.”

Red shook his head. “That's not possible.”

“Mr. Kaplan did this! She saved Agnes! You sent her to infiltrate Kirk's group! That's why you wouldn't answer me when I asked you where she was!”

“ _No_ _Lizzie._ ”

“Where is Mr. Kaplan? Where's the rendezvous point?” Liz asked.

“Mr. Kaplan does _not_ have Agnes.”

“Yes, she _does!_ ”

“No, Lizzie. She doesn't. Mr. Kaplan is dead.”

“ _No!_ Mr. Kaplan _has_ my baby!”

“Mr. Kaplan is dead, Lizzie. _I_ shot Mr. Kaplan.”

“No -” Elizabeth grabbed on to the front of his shirt. “No! She can't be! She -”

“- _Lizzie, Mr. Kaplan is gone. I killed her. I shot her at point blank range!”_

“No! _No!”_ Letting go of his shirt, Liz crumpled to the ground crying – whether for the poor woman whose only sin – at least in Red's eyes – had been helping her _or_ for her lost daughter, he couldn't say.

 

_OOOO_

“You need to eat. We've got to get your strength back up.”

Mr. Kaplan didn't ask for what.

 

_tbc_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reviews are greatly appreciated.


	3. Chapter 3

_Too Many Clues in the Room_

 

Liz was still crumpled up on the floor, inconsolable, when Baz came in looking for his marching orders. “What do you want us to do about all the bodies? We didn't kill them. Do we just leave them?”

Reddington shook his head. “Get rid of them.”

Baz stared questioningly at the glasses in Dembe's hands. “Mr. Kaplan isn't answering.”

Dembe admitted. “Raymond, none of Mr. Kaplan's girls are.”

Reddington's voice was dull as he answered. “Then get new girls.”

Baz was still just standing there looking at the glasses.

Reddington tipped his head towards the door. “Baz.”

Baz left.

“Kirk is dead. Mr. Kaplan is dead. So _who_ has Agnes?” Tom asked.

Shaking his head, Reddington admitted. ”I don't know. Someone else who had it in for Kirk.”

“Or someone _else_ who has it in for you.” Tom suggested.

Reddington nodded. “It could be someone who wants to hurt me or it could be someone who knew I wanted Agnes and wants something from me. I don't know.”

“Well try to think.” Tom prompted him. “Because I would say leaving Mr. Kaplan's glasses makes for a pretty big clue.”

Still staring at the glasses, Reddington just shook his head.

“What about Mr. Kaplan's family? Her friends?”

Reddington still offered nothing.

Tom continued to pepper him with questions. “Did Mr. Kaplan have children?”

“Mr. Kaplan was more of a hands off mother.”

“But she has children?”

“No.”

“No?” Tom repeated. “You can't be a hands off mother without being a mother so which is it?”

“She _had_ children.”

“Had?” Tom repeated. “She _had_ children? But not anymore?”

From the floor, Liz asked. “Did you kill them too?”

Biting the side of his mouth, Reddington looked away without answering.

“Oh God!” Having caught the look on his face before he turned, Liz cringed. “You did, didn't you? Oh my God! You killed her children!”

Raymond gave a halfhearted shake of his head, but he didn't outright deny it.

Tom pushed him again. “Reddington, you've got to give me something! Leaving Mr. Kaplan's glasses in the crib had to mean something! I mean if it wasn't Mr. Kaplan _why_ would someone try to make it look like she was responsible? _Who_ would do that? _Who_ would try to frame a dead woman?”

Picking herself up off of the floor, Lizzie interrupted. “- I can't stay here. I need to go! Tom, take me home!”

Snapping out of his daze, Reddington agreed. “Tom, get her back to the warehouse. Dembe and I will finish up here.”

“No -”

“- Tom, please!” Liz begged. “I need to get out of here!”

Looking frustrated and torn, at Liz's request, Tom finally relented.

Before they reached the door, Reddington stopped her by touching her arm. “Lizzie, I will get you answers.”

Liz jerked her arm away and kept walking.

 

OoO

 

Getting into the car, Tom tried to reassure her. “Liz, we will -”

Done sniveling, Liz wasn't interested. “- Start driving. Take the left up ahead.”

“That's not the way back to the warehouse.”

“We're not going back to the warehouse.”

“ _Where_ are we going?”

Checking the rear view mirror, she told him. “First, you need to lose our escort. Then we are going to see Vanessa Cruz.”

 

_OOOOO_

She needed to figure him out.

There was something more than a little bit off about anyone - herself included - who would want to hide themselves away from the world. People who chose to live all by themselves in the middle of the woods usually had a reason. It was seldom a good one.

Leg irons weren't something you happened to have laying around. They weren't like a length of rope. They couldn't serve multiple purposes. Leg irons only had one use.

Kate tried to figure him out between bites of his gamey soup.

What was his dysfunction? Was he looking to act out some kind of wounded bird or damsel in distress fantasy? Or was he looking to play the Most Dangerous Game and needed his prey to be in top form? Was he just your run of the mill serial killer? Or worse - some kind of sadist?

She needed to figure him out - and quickly - so she knew what part to play.

_tbc_


	4. I'll Prove My Love

_I'll Prove My Love_

 

“Who is Vanessa Cruz?” Tom asked as he worked to pick the lock on the door.

“Vanessa Cruz was a blacklister Reddington put us on to. She evaded arrest … with Reddington's help. Her specialty was framing people for crimes they didn't commit.”

“So Cruz is on Reddington's payroll?”

“No. Not anymore.” Raymond admitted as he and Dembe came up behind them. “Mr. Kaplan was the one that I sent to recruit Vanessa on my behalf.”

Liz pointed out. “But working for you wasn't _all_ that Mr. Kaplan recruited her for.”

Raymond nodded. “It was a little May/December but Mr. Kaplan always had a weakness for homicidal maniacs.”

“And look where that got her.”

Ignoring Lizzie's jab, Raymond continued. “They were on again off again, but when Mr. Kaplan dropped out of contact completely with Vanessa - “

“- Because you _killed_ her.” Lizzie seemed to be in a mood to pick apart everything he said.

“Vanessa wasn't very happy with me.”

Once inside the luxurious penthouse apartment, it only took a minute for them to sweep it to confirm that Vanessa wasn't there. That accomplished, Raymond directed them to begin a more detailed search.

“What are we looking for?”

“I don't know. But I do know Vanessa wanted me to know she did this.” Raymond shook his head. “Or at least was a part of it. This was beyond Vanessa's capabilities.”

Raymond indicated for Dembe to search the kitchen. “You and Tom check the office.”

As Raymond himself headed for the stairs to the bedroom, Lizzie stopped him. _“You_ and Tom take the office. _I'll_ check the bedroom.”

Raymond didn't argue. Not having trusted the task to anyone else – and unwilling to put it on Dembe - he had emptied out all of Mr. Kaplan's apartments personally. He had had his fill of going through other people's personal belongings.

“I don't know what I'm looking for – I don't even know what I'm looking _at._ ” Tom admitted as he opened drawer after drawer of neatly labeled little vials of blood and saliva samples and poly bags full of carefully cataloged hairs and fibers.

“Mr. Kaplan always had an appreciation for a well organized mind.”

“Is that what this is?”

Dembe soon joined them. He shook his head.

Raymond frowned. He hadn't heard any movement from upstairs in some time. “I'm going to check on Elizabeth.”

Tom and Dembe followed on his heels.

Liz wasn't searching. She was just sitting on the bed. Her head was down. There was something in her hands.

“Lizzie? What did you find?”

“Mr. Kaplan had a drawer.”

Raymond shuttered his eyes for the briefest of moments. He shouldn't have put that on Elizabeth.

“She kept a few changes of clothes here. A toothbrush.” He reopened them to Lizzie holding up an empty eye glass case. “And an extra pair of glasses.”

 

_OOO_

 

Liz stood from the bed when they heard the downstairs door open. A woman's heels could be heard crossing the hardwood floors.

When Liz and the others went to look, Vanessa was downstairs. Calm as could be, she was fixing herself a drink. Agnes was nowhere to be seen.

Much to Dembe's displeasure, Reddington took the lead going down the stairs.

“Hello Raymond.” Vanessa didn't look up to address him. “I'm pleased to see you found my invitation.”

“It was a little hard to miss, Vanessa.”

Reddington signaled the others to stay back by the stairs as he approached - his gun remaining holstered.

Liz watched as Reddington spoke and moved very slowly as if dealing with a skittish animal – or a very dangerous one. “Thank you, Vanessa, for rescuing Agnes.”

Done stirring, Vanessa carefully poured out the drink into a martini glass before looking up to answer. “Don't thank me, Raymond. Thank Kate.”

Reddington's eyebrows knit together and for a moment his face lost its impassiveness.

“After all, it was her plan. I just did a bit of the leg work.”

“Vanessa, where is Agnes?”

“She's with Kate now.”

Mr. Kaplan was dead. Was that Cruz's indirect way of saying … Liz gasped. As she started to move closer, with a hand, Reddington again tried to signal her to stop.

Reddington gave his head a slight shake. “I know you are angry with me, Vanessa, but I also know you wouldn't hurt Agnes. Mr. Kaplan loved that baby. She risked _everything_ for that baby. She  betrayed _me_ for that baby.”

“I didn't hurt her, Raymond. I told you. I left her with Kate.”

“Vanessa, please. Kate would want Agnes back with her mother.”

“I didn't invite you here to talk about what Kate wants, Raymond. Kate has what she wants. _I_ invited you here to get what _I_ want.”

Clearly not understanding, Reddington shook his head. “I can't give you what you want, Vanessa. I don't have it. All I can say is that I deeply regret not having Kate to give to you.”

“I know you don't have Kate, Raymond, but there is still something you can give me.”

“Tell me what you want, Vanessa.”

Back to work on her martini, Cruz speared an olive.

Liz found herself getting distracted by Cruz's movements. There was something off about the way she had stirred and poured her martini. The way she held herself, the way she moved her hands – only using the very tips of her fingers to touch anything - it was like she had a fresh manicure that wasn't yet dry and was afraid of smudging it.

“Where are my manners? Would you care for a drink, Raymond?”

Reddington shook his head. “I didn't come here for a drink, Vanessa.”

“Maybe that isn't why you came, but _that_ is why _I_ in vited you here.”

As Cruz dropped the olive into the martini and started walking towards Reddington. Liz stared at the martini. Something wasn't right about it. Since when did olives fizz like that in a martini?

“Vanessa please! Just tell me what you want?”

“An eye for an eye, Raymond.”

Dembe was quicker on the uptake. As Cruz tried to throw her drink in Reddington's face, Dembe knocked him out of the way. Liz too found herself pushed to the ground as Tom covered her with his body as best he could.

Looking up from the floor, seeing the liquid hit the leather sofa and began eating away at it's surface, Liz realized what was wrong with the martini. “She just tried to throw acid in your face!”

Dembe dropped his gun as he hissed in agony and rolling off Reddington, rushed to remove his jacket. He had spared Reddington and avoided the worse of it himself, but a few drops had spattered on his back. Underneath Tom, Liz couldn't do anything but watch.

The gun was between Vanessa and Reddington. Vanessa could have easily made a grab for it and she would have made it, but instead, as Reddington tried to pick himself up off the floor, Vanessa launched herself at him.

Still stunned, Liz watched as Tom struggled to pull Cruz off of Reddington.

Taking out a handkerchief, Reddington held it up to the right side of his face where Cruz had clawed at him like an animal.

Lizzie said it again. “She just tried to thrown acid in your face!”

“What can I say? Mr. Kaplan had a type. Happy and well adjusted, it was not.”

Using Liz's handcuffs, Tom handcuffed Vanessa to a chair.

Reddington was already ushering Dembe up the stairs. “I need to get Dembe taken care of. Then I'll be back for you. Tom, watch her.”

 

_OOOO_

 

She was covered in dried blood from being shot. Caked in dirt and mud from dragging herself to the stream. Her hair on her right side was matted.

She was content to remain repellant for as long as possible. He had other plans.

“Let's get you cleaned up, little lady.”

She shook her head, but turning down the blankets, he ignored her protests and lifted her to her feet. An arm around her waist, he marched her to the small washroom. The chain went with them.

Once inside, she looked around for a mirror but there wasn't one to be found.

She wasn't sure if she was disappointed or relieved.

“We'll get you scrubbed and changed. Then we'll get you fed and back in bed.”

He stood behind her as he undressed her. Her suit jacket was long gone. He fumbled with the scarf at her neck, but he made quick work of the zipper on her skirt.

She still wasn't exactly clear what kind of deviant she was dealing with – if he was just paranoid and delusional, your garden variety serial killer or a sadist - but she wasn't going to give him any encouragement if he was the latter.

She was determined not to show him any signs of fear or pain, but her mind and her body had differing ideas. She stiffened as he began undoing the buttons on her blouse.

Her blood had dried her blouse to the right side of her body like a second skin. He warned her. “This is going to sting a bit.”

Getting the blouse off was like pulling off a bandaid – but one that covered one whole side of her body. As he removed it, her legs gave out and her mouth opened involuntarily, but she managed to hold in her scream.

Catching her and holding her up, he sounded impressed. “Now I _know_ that had to have hurt. Don't hold it in on my account, little darling.”

Down to her slip, as the hand not holding her up began easing one of the straps down her shoulder, she shuddered.

The hand paused a moment before dragging the strap back up.

“Why don't we leave that for now. Let the water uncrust the blood.”

A hand pump that provided water straight from the ground was what passed for running water.

As he put her into the already filled tub and lowered her down into the cold, cold water, she gasped and blacked out again.

 

_tbc_


	5. I'm Not Sayin'

 

 

_I'm Not Sayin'_

 

It was already too late to prevent the worst of the damage, still Raymond put Dembe under the water to dilute what was left of the acid. Thankfully, the furniture had taken the brunt of the liquid.

Once he had Dembe in the shower, Reddington pulled out his phone.

“Brimley! I am in need of your services. It's a matter of some urgency.”

“No can do, Red. I'm retired.”

“ _Retired?_ Since when?”

“Since I'm an old man, Raymond. I'm an old man and I'm not well.”

“You're only as old as you f -”

Brimley interrupted. “- You missed my wedding.”

Raymond was slightly thrown by the sudden change of topic. Recovering, he apologized. “I know and I'm sorry. I hope you liked the gift that I sent. I know you've been looking for an inverted Jenny for a -”

Brimley cut him off again. “- Mr. Kaplan missed the wedding too. That's not like Kate.”

Raymond did what he did of late whenever the topic turned to Mr. Kaplan. He shut down.

The silence didn't drag on for long before Brimley filled it. “Don't call me again, Raymond.”

 

_OOOOOOOO_

 

Liz wasn't waiting for Reddington to come back to start asking questions. _“Do you have my baby?”_

She wasn't really expecting Cruz to cooperate – not without _persuading_ \- but surprisingly, she did.

“No. I don't have Agnes. Kate took her.”

Liz wasn't sure what to think about Vanessa. One minute she acted as if she knew what Reddington had done to Mr. Kaplan – why else would she have tried to kill him - but the next she talked as if she thought that Mr. Kaplan was alive.

Then again, people who threw acid tended to not be the most stable, well adjusted of individuals. Rather than put strain on Cruz's seemingly tenuous grasp on reality, Liz focused on getting whatever answers she could out of the other woman who if nothing else, had almost certainly been at Kirk's safe house.

Tom asked. “Who left Mr. Kaplan's glasses in the crib?”

Cruz didn't answer Tom, but when Liz stated it as a fact ... “You were the one that left Mr. Kaplan's glasses in the crib.”

… Cruz didn't deny it. “I am.”

_“Why?”_

“Because I wanted Raymond Reddington to know who was responsible. Who it was that was still cleaning up his messes. _And_ because _I_ wanted him to come here looking for _me_ so _I_ could give him what he has coming to him.”

Cruz said it so vehemently. _“An eye for an eye.”_

Not wanting to talk or even think about Reddington, Liz asked again. “You didn't take my baby?”

“No. I've never even laid eyes on your baby. I never went past the kitchens before tonight. When I left the glasses in the crib – that was the only time I have ever been in the nursery.”

Maybe, Liz realized, she was the crazy one because she couldn't stop asking the same questions over and over again hoping for a different answer. “You never saw my baby?”

“No.”

Tom asked her. “Why did you infiltrate Kirk's compound?”

Vanessa said nothing. It was a good question, Liz repeated it. “What were you doing at Kirk's safe house?”

“Because Kate asked me to. She called me to ask for my help with her plan to get you and Agnes back.”

Liz locked eyes with Tom.

“What plan?” Tom asked.

But Liz hadn't gotten that far. She was momentarily stymied by the idea that Mr. Kaplan had called Vanessa. “You _talked_ to Mr. Kaplan?”

“Yes.”

“When? _When_ did she call you with her plan?”

“She called me from Texas. From Amarillo _.”_

Liz would have been disappointed by the brief moment of hope if she still believed in hope.

Tom interrupted Vanessa to accuse her of lying. “She couldn't have. Reddington took away her phone. She already didn't have it when I caught up with them in Cuba.”

“She called me from her friend Nikos' office.”

Liz saw the realization dawn on Tom's face before he chimed in. ”Reddington left her alone for a few minutes in Little Nikos' office to clean up Mato.”

Nikos? Liz didn't know any Nikos. She put him aside for now and instead asked. “What was Mr. Kaplan's plan and how did you find Kirk's safe house?”

“Kate knows a great many people. Nikos wasn't the only one of her friends that Reddington didn't know. She reached out to some Russians. People from the old days. People who owed her favors. People who didn't like Kirk. She asked for a list to be sent of real estate owned or leased by Kirk and his shell companies all over the world.”

Liz said it out loud. “Possible safe houses. I don't understand. That list had to be long. How did Mr. Kaplan know Kirk would go there? To that particular location?”

“She didn't. It wasn't just me. Kate sent out all of her girls to try to find you and your baby.”

Tom pointed out. “That's why none of them are around to step in and take over cleaning for Reddington.”

“Kate couldn't go herself. Kirk knew her. They had history. He would have recognized her immediately. When she called, she told me she was short on time so she was going to have the list sent to _me_ to distribute. She gave me numbers for a few of the girls who worked for her. When the list arrived I was to split it and send part to each of them. She said they would know what to do. Her girls would take it from there.”

Tom questioned Vanessa. “What kind of history did Mr. Kaplan have with Kirk? And why not just have the list sent to Reddington?”

Vanessa didn't answer. “I couldn't just do nothing. I knew how important finding the two of you was to Kate. I picked a place off the list for myself.”

Tom asked good questions. Liz asked a different one. “How long had you been working there?”

“I've been there for months waiting for Kirk and Agnes to arrive.”

Liz didn't understand. “Why would you stay there if you got in and Kirk wasn't there?”

“It didn't matter if Kirk was there or not. It was better if he wasn't – easier to get in and then just wait. Reddington is a battering ram. Kate preferred to work things from behind the scenes. She knew that Reddington would flush Kirk out of his hideouts one by one until eventually, Kirk would find his way to one of the safe houses where she had her people. Her Trojan horse would already be inside waiting.”

“What was Kirk doing back here? So close to D.C.?”

“He could have been planning to make another play for you, Liz.”

Tom offered one theory, but Vanessa had another.

“He was suppose to be meeting with some new doctor. I don't know the doctor's name, but I overhead that he refused to travel out of the country to see Kirk the way Kirk's other doctors did. I think Kirk came here to try to meet with him.”

Tom wasn't buying it. He shook his head. “She was only alone in that office for five, _maybe_ ten minutes. There's no way she could have organized all that in just a few minutes.”

Liz believed it. “I think you are forgetting, this is Mr. Kaplan we are talking about.”

Liz asked. “What was the plan once Kirk arrived?”

“If any of us got in we were to go dark until Kirk arrived with you and Agnes. Once that happened, we were to signal her and only her. Not Reddington.”

“Why not Reddington?” Liz asked.

Ever the pessimist Tom made a conjecture. “She needed leverage. Mr. Kaplan was trying to save her own skin. She knew what Reddington was going to do with her. She must have thought she could get back into his good graces by retrieving Agnes on her own.”

Scowling at Tom, Vanessa disagreed. “I don't think Kate planned to give Agnes back to him. After what Raymond and your husband did to her friend Nikos, Kate felt that Raymond had lost his way.”

Liz looked at Tom warily. “Who is or was Nikos?”

“He knew where Agnes was. Well -” Looking more caught than contrite, Tom admitted. “ - not where she was but he knew how to contact the man who took Agnes on Kirk's orders.”

Vanessa argued. “He was Kate's friend. She could have gotten the information from him.”

“Reddington gave her a chance. Little Nikos wouldn't tell her how to reach Mato.”

Liz took a not so wild guess. “Reddington gave Mr. Kaplan a chance? How long of a chance? Five minutes? Ten minutes? Two minutes?”

“He let her ask.” Tom admitted.

Liz grimaced. “So _no_ minutes. And then what did Reddington do to him?” Seeing the way Tom looked down and taking into account Vanessa's accusation of Tom's involvement, Liz amended her question. “And then what did _you_ do to him?”

“Liz ... I just used what was on hand.”

Dreading the answer, Liz asked. “What was on hand?”

Liz had to repeat the question before Tom would answer. “ _What was on hand?_ ”

“A surgical drill and a cauterizer.”

“Where were you that a surgical drill was what was on hand? Were you at a hospital?”

“It was more of a stand alone clinic.”

“Was Mr. Kaplan's friend Nikos a doctor?”

For the briefest of moments, Liz thought of her own doctor friend, Nick, and what Reddington might have done to him for his part in their charade, but not having the fortitude to think about that at the moment, she simply pushed the thought away.

“No.”

“He was a patient?”

“His surgery … it was elective. Look Liz -”

Liz held up a hand to stop him. “Was this Nikos involved with Kirk or the kidnapping in any way?”

“No, but -” Tom looked sorry, but only sorry that she was finding out about it, not sorry for what he had done. “ - Liz, he knew how to find the man who knew how to find the man who had our daughter!”

“So Reddington had you _torture_ Mr. Kaplan's friend. Did he make her watch?”

Tom hesitated only a fraction of a second before assuring her. “No Liz. He didn't.”

Something about his slight hesitation made her press him on the matter. “No?”

Tom insisted. “He took her out of the room with him.”

“We agreed, no more lies, Tom. That was the deal.” Liz stared at him waiting.

Tom admitted. “He kept her with him in the waiting room.”

Liz cringed. “So she could hear.”

“Yes.” Tom admitted.

“Reddington made her listen as you tortured her friend with a surgical drill and then cauterized the wounds so you could do it some more.” Liz was so far beyond being just horrified. “Did you kill him?”

Again Tom answered unconvincingly. “Little Nikos was alive when I left the room … and Reddington followed Mr. Kaplan back in.”

When she covered her face with her hands, his voice desperate, Tom pleaded with her.

“Liz, I'm telling you - that's all I know.”

Pulling herself together, Liz asked Vanessa. “What happened tonight?”

“I worked in the kitchens. Once Kirk arrived at my safe house I gave the signal. Kate had already told me what poison to use. It was easier because you weren't there. It was just Agnes to work around. I put it in the food in the evening meal and then I left as usual so as not to arouse suspicion– just like Kate told me to.”

“What about Agnes? What about my baby?”

“There was no danger for your baby. Agnes was too young to eat solid foods so there was no fear of her getting any of the poison.”

Liz tried again hoping for a different answer. “No, I mean where did you take my baby?”

“I left the baby. The poison had to have a delayed reaction to make sure everyone would eat it. My routine was that I always left right after cleaning the kitchen at the end of the night. It would have looked suspicious if I tried to stay. The plan was for me to give the signal and she would come for the baby. ”

Liz looked at Tom in horror. The flaw in that plan being that Mr. Kaplan was dead. She wasn't there to get Cruz's signal. She wasn't there to rescue Agnes.

Tom shook his head. “No. This is bullshit, Liz! This is ridiculous. It's got to be a trick! She has our baby! Think about it, Liz! Why else would she be here? Why else would she be pretending to answer our questions?”

Vanessa set him straight. “I'm answering Elizabeth's questions. Not yours and certainly not Reddington's.”

Vanessa turned back to Elizabeth. “You are not my enemy. Reddington is. Kate just wanted to help you and your daughter. Everything Kate ever did was to protect you. She wouldn't want you to worry. Agnes is fine.”

Liz tried to keep it together. Agnes wasn't in the house with all the bodies when they arrived which meant that someone had to have taken her.

“Someone else had to have been in that house. Someone who didn't like what was on the menu that night or arrived after dinner.”

“Or someone who knew not to eat the food.” Tom suggested.

Liz latched on to that idea. “Mr. Kaplan's other girls, the ones who worked for her -” Liz clarified lest Vanessa get offended. “- who were they? Were any of them at the house with you?”

She needed to figure out who else could have stepped in and taken Agnes in Mr. Kaplan's place.

“Even if they were there I wouldn't know. Kate gave me a few numbers to call and they took it from there. It was a call tree. I never met with them and I could hardly have gone up to the other women who worked there and asked if they were there on Kate's behalf.”

“We're going to need those phone numbers.” Tom told her.

Liz found herself getting frustrated. “You left, but you went back to the house. You would have had to to put the glasses in Agnes' crib. Did you see anything or anyone then?”

“I am telling you, there is nothing to worry about. Kate has your baby.”

Vanessa's hands were handcuffed together with the short chain looped through the arm of the chair to severely limit her range of motion. Laying one of her hands atop Vanessa's, Liz tried to ease Vanessa into the harsh reality. “Vanessa, Mr. Kaplan can't be the one to have taken Agnes. Reddington has admitted that he killed her for betraying him.”

Vanessa refused to accept it. “Kate's not dead.”

Vanessa knew that Mr. Kaplan was dead. She had to. That was why she had come after Reddington.

“Vanessa, Mr. Kaplan called you from Amarillo. Has she called you since then?”

Vanessa smiled at her reassuringly. “No, but she didn't need to. She -

Hearing the water stop upstairs, they both froze.

Elizabeth made a decision. She uncuffed Cruz from the chair. “Go. Now!”

Tom grabbed Vanessa by the shoulders to stop her.

“Liz, what the hell are you doing?”

“Reddington, he's going to kill her.”

“In all fairness, Liz, she _did_ just try to throw acid in his face!”

When that didn't sway her, Tom tried a different angle. “Liz, you can't just let her go. She has information about our daughter.”

“She gave us information about our daughter.”

“Even if you believe her – which I don't - she might have more!”

“I know, but ...” So many things didn't add up. Liz wanted to go over Vanessa's story again. She knew she was missing something. She needed more time, but she knew she didn't have it. “... he is going to kill her – just like he killed Mr. Kaplan! Just like he killed her children!”

“Liz, you are jumping to conclusions. Reddington never actually admitted to -”

Tom didn't get to finish. Cruz elbowed him in the ribs, turned to knee him in the crotch and then for good measure broke a vase over his head before running for the door.

Hearing the commotion, Reddington and a shirtless Dembe came rushing down the stairs guns drawn. “What was that?”

Seeing no Vanessa and the empty handcuffs in Liz's hands, Reddington asked. “ _Lizzie, what did you do?”_

“What did _you_ do?” Liz countered. “What did you do?”

“Please tell me you did not just let the homicidal maniac holding your daughter go free?”

Despite his own injuries, Dembe was the one to help Tom off the floor as Elizabeth faced off with Reddington. “Vanessa said that she didn't have Agnes.”

Reddington looked stunned. “And you believed her?”

“Yes.” Liz answered honestly. “I do.”

“So you let her _go?_ ” Reddington quickly went from stunned to outraged. “Do you actually even want to find your daughter? Because you just let the best lead we had walk out the door! Of course Cruz has Agnes!”

Clearly trying to rein in his anger, Reddington tried again. “What did Vanessa tell you?”

Tom answered. “You killed the golden goose before you got all the eggs.”

While gingerly touching the spot on his head where Vanessa had hit him, Tom summarized the latest complication in the search for their daughter. “According to Vanessa, Mr. Kaplan had a plan to rescue Agnes. Part of that plan involved Vanessa poisoning everybody and leaving Agnes at Kirk's safe house for Mr. Kaplan to retrieve. Only what Vanessa _didn't_ know was that you killed Mr. Kaplan so she never got the message to swing on through and pick up our daughter.”

Liz thought about what Tom had done to Mr. Kaplan's friend Nikos. She thought of the things she had idly stood by and let Reddington's friend Brimley do. One of the missing pieces clicked.

“What did you do to her? To Mr. Kaplan? You shot her, but what else did you do to her? Did you think that she had more information? That she was holding out on you? Did you have Tom or Brimley try to get it out of her?”

Missing the forest for the trees, Reddington shook his head. “Brimley would never hurt Kate.”

Liz had once thought that of Reddington.

“Then one of your _other_ buddies! What did you do to Mr. Kaplan?!” Liz insisted. “I want to know what happened! I want to know _exactly_ what you did to Mr. Kaplan!”

“You want to know what happened to Mr. Kaplan?!” Having had enough, Reddington shouted back at her. “I brought her out into the woods! To the middle of nowhere! She knew exactly what we were there for, but she didn't beg or plead. She didn't try to run and she _certainly_ didn't apologize. She was _defiant_. She was Mr. Kaplan _to the very end._ She looked me straight in the eye as I told her I was putting her out to pasture! I was retiring her! And then I pulled out a gun and I shot her! She spun around in a pirouette like a little -”

Reddington's voice broke and he stopped.

No one else said a word. Liz and the others just stared at him in appalled silence.

Solemnly, sounding like his heart was breaking, Reddington finished. “She spun around like a little ballerina and then she hit the ground. And I walked away.” Reddington's brow furrowed. “I walked away. I left her there. Face down in the grass. For all of eternity.”

Sitting down in the chair Cruz had just vacated, Reddington put his head in his hands.

Liz felt like she was going to be sick.

OOO

 

She woke to the warmth of a roaring fire and the weight of an extra blanket. She wasn't in the bed. She had been left in a chair by the fire.

Her hose and slip were gone. Feeling around under the blanket, she found she was again wearing a blouse and a skirt but they weren't her own. The material felt cheap and synthetic.

Mentally, she did an inventory. She was still sore in all the same places – no less, no more. Reaching up to touch her face, she could tell that the bandage was new. Her hair had been washed and the tangles combed out.

“You gave me a little scare there, darling.”

Startled, she turned her head to find him looming over her.

“I'm a country mouse. I wasn't thinking. A little city mouse like you, I should have heated the water for you. I'm sorry. Now let's get you fed and back in bed.“

 

_tbc_

 


	6. Too Much to Lose

_Chapter 6 Too Much to Lose_

Finished with his confession of murdering Mr. Kaplan, Reddington had collapsed into the chair. He just sat there holding his head in his hands.

As much as she wanted to turn her back on him and never set eyes on him again, Liz knew that Reddington was her best – possibly only chance of ever seeing her daughter again.

Liz brought herself down to his level. Fighting back her revulsion, she reached out to touch his hand to get his attention.

He lifted his head so his eyes could meet hers.

“Mr. Kaplan had a plan. Did she tell you her plan of how to get Agnes back? How to get me back from Kirk?”

The shaking of his head said no, but his expression said something else.

“Think.” Liz urged him. “This is very important. Did she tell you _anything_ about how she thought you should go about finding us?”

Again, he gave the same response.

Dembe prompted him. “You two were sitting at the table. What did she say that made you tell her it would be best for her to wait outside?”

Reddington shook his head. “I don't know.”

“Think Raymond.”

“Mr. Kaplan _tried_ to tell me something, but I couldn't hear her.”

Liz didn't understand. “What do you mean you couldn't hear her?”

“There was this noise. Every time I looked at Kate … every time she talked ... it was so hard to hear anything over that noise.”

“What noise?” Liz asked.

“In my head.” Reddington admitted. “This wasn't the first time that Mr Kaplan took you away from me.”

Liz looked to Dembe, but he shook his head just as clueless as she was.

“When you were just a few months old, your mother brought you to D.C. for a few weeks to visit your grandparents. Katarina told everyone that she was going to lunch with some girlfriends. Your grandmother wanted to keep you while she went, but Katarina said that her friends would want to see you so she had to bring you along.

“Instead, she showed up on my doorstep. She had told them a tale of friends to visit, she told me a tale of you being colicky and her having to walk with you all night so you wouldn't wake your sick grandmother up.

“Your mother asked me if I could look after you for a few hours while she slept. It became our routine for those few weeks and for her later visits to D.C.

“She would show up on my doorstep, tell me her lunch order, hand you over with your diaper bag and the key's to Kate's car and then she would hide herself away in my bedroom to rest.

“All Katarina's talk of colic, but you never cried while I was watching you. I thought I had the magic touch.”

Liz didn't know where Reddington was going with his meandering story or where his _wife_ happened to be in all this, but she couldn't stop herself from interrupting. “The keys to Kate's car? To Mr. Kaplan's car? Why would my mother have the keys to Mr. Kaplan's car? Did Mr. Kaplan know my mother?”

Reddington said it like it was the most obvious thing. “Kate's car was the one with your car seat in it so Katarina borrowed it.”

Liz was so confused. “Why was my car seat in Mr. Kaplan's car?”

“Kate -” Reddington cleared his throat. “Mr. Kaplan, she took your grandmother to the airport to pick you and your mother up. You have to understand that car seats were this new _alien_ invention to their generation. No one wanted to move it from car to car. Your grandfather, he would have bought a car seat for you for every car in the city, but Mr. Kaplan was always more sensible than either of your grandparents. Kate could drive any car. It was just easier to let your mother or whoever had you drive Kate's Cadillac and Kate would drive your grandmother's Mercedes.”

Somehow, the idea that she had had grandparents had never occurred to her. “Mr. Kaplan knew my grandparents?”

Liz was completely derailing his story. Reddington wasn't taking it well. He was back to looking down at his hands. “Mr. Kaplan was ...” Reddington paused before settling on the words “... an associate of … both of your grandparents.”

Liz translated that easily enough to they were all criminals together.

Now that she knew that she had had grandparents, she was a little hurt by what she perceived as her grandfather's lack of interest in her. “Why did Mr. Kaplan have to take my grandmother to the airport? Why didn't my grandfather drive my grandmother to the airport? Didn't he want to see me?”

“Very much so, but your grandmother was a petty woman. She didn't want him to get to hold you before she did. She wanted to get to spend a little bit of time with you and your mother before he did. Like Cinderella's stepmother and stepsisters, she waited until it was time to go to the ball and then she told your grandfather he couldn't go. He had to stay at her house and assemble the crib she had ordered for you or you wouldn't have a place to sleep that night. Katarina said he was standing in the driveway of your grandmother's house waiting when they pulled in.”

A small detail caught Liz's attention. “Her house? They weren't married anymore?”

“Your grandparents were never married … well not to each other.”

Elizabeth couldn't keep the bitterness out of her tone. “My mother was the product of some illicit affair.”

“No. Nothing as sordid as that. Your grandfather wasn't even married at the time.”

Darkly, Elizabeth persisted. “So she was an accident – like I was. Like Agnes was.”

“No.” Reddington swung his head. “Your mother was very much wanted. Very much intended.

“Your grandmother desperately wanted a baby, but she was having trouble getting pregnant. They say it takes a village to raise a child. Sometimes it takes more than two people to have a child. Your grandfather cared very much for your grandmother and her happiness. He agreed to help get your grandmother a child. Afterward, he stayed a part of your mother's life. It was all very civilized … for the most part. There was never any real animosity, but there was sometimes a bit of a disagreement about who should get to do things like drop off or pick up your mother at the airport or be the first to get to take her to the zoo to see the new pandas from China.”

“What was my mother's maiden name?”

Reddington didn't answer.

He went back to his story. “Your mother had once again sent me _all_ the way across town to get lunch. It was a mild day. Not hot. Not cold. You were sleeping so peacefully. You weren't in one of those bucket seats. You had been up the whole night fussing – or so your mother said. I knew it was too early, but she swore you had to be teething already. I didn't want to disturb you by taking you out. So I rolled up all the windows. I locked the doors and I left you there in the car while I went inside to pick up the food.

“There were two people in line in front of me at the hostess stand, but I could see the order with my name on it siting on the shelf behind her. I went around the counter and I grabbed it. Before the hostess or the people in line in front of me could start to complain I pulled off the ticket. I handed her two twenties for a $24.79 bill and I walked back out.

“I came out of the restaurant and the car was gone.

“You were gone.

“I had lost you.

“I knew exactly where I had parked the car and all I could do was look at that one spot.

“I was literally gone for less than two minutes. There was no broken glass. I still had the keys. I just stood there staring. I couldn't comprehend how you could possibly be gone in an instant.

“I dropped the keys and the bag with the lunch in it and I just stood there _frozen_ staring at that empty parking space.

“A woman stopped to pick them up for me. She asked me if everything was all right. I told her no. Nothing was all right. I told her the car was gone and I had left you sleeping in it.

“She looked at the keys and saw the Cadillac emblem. She asked me what color the car was and if I could recall the plate number so she could call the police for me.

“I told her.

“She laughed at me. She congratulated me on my new baby but told me I needed to get more sleep if I couldn't even remember where I parked.

“She turned me a little to the right and she pointed. The car was there with you and Kate in the backseat.

“Mr. Kaplan wanted to teach me a lesson, but ...” Reddington shook his head. “I don't believe she intended to frighten me to the extent that she did. She only moved the car a few spots to the right. I'm sure she thought I would come out of the restaurant _not_ see the car and after a half second of panic look left and then look right and immediately spot her car ...

“But I didn't.

“I got into the backseat with the two of you. Kate was livid with me. She started listing off all of the things that could have happened to you. She was in the right.” Reddington looked pained as he admitted. “Kate was always in the right.

“Mr. Kaplan kept talking. She was trying to impart some great wisdom to me, but I couldn't hear it.

“I couldn't hear anything. All I could hear was my anger.

“It was like the ocean drowning out everything else. White noise, only it wasn't white. It was dark. And it was only in my head.

“Kate thought _I_ was the troublemaker. That _I_ was a bad influence on Katarina. As far as she was concerned, Katarina could do no wrong. She didn't believe me when I said that your mother was the instigator. You want to believe the best of the people you care about. You never want to suspect them of being duplicitous.

“Disappearing for a few hours in the middle of the day every day for weeks – I had to make up the work somehow. It wasn't allowed, but I started bringing documents home to work on in the evening so I wouldn't fall behind. Classified papers.

“I thought Katarina came to see me because she wanted to see me. I thought she brought you with her because she wanted me to know you.”

Reddington shook his head. “I was a patsy and you, you were a prop. She would send me out to get us lunch while she took a nap. She would always pick the most particular thing - a salad from Sans Souci or crab cakes from Duke's and I would spend half an hour fighting the midday traffic to get there and another half an hour to get back. I just thought she was being her mother's daughter - pampered and spoiled. Accustomed to her any and every whim being fulfilled. I never suspected she was doing it so she could go through all my classified government papers.”

Liz was horrified. She didn't understand. “Why are you telling me this? _Now_?”

Reddington raised his head finally meeting her gaze. “Because I don't think you have _ever_ reminded me of her as much as you do right now – trying to use me to get what you want.”

Liz pulled back her hand as if it had been scalded.

_OOO_

As Liz ended her call with Harold Cooper, Tom asked her. “Are you sure that that was a good idea? Giving him the location of Kirk's safe house? For all we know, Reddington could still have people there cleaning the place.”

Back in their fishbowl facade of a home, an angry Liz turned on him. “That would be kind of hard to do without any kind of cleaning crew.”

Tom raised both hands in surrender, but Liz kept going. “You know Reddington! You know what he is like!”

“Yes.” Tom admitted knowing where this was going.

“At no point did you think to speak up on Mr. Kaplan's behalf? To tell Reddington that this was what we wanted? What _I_ wanted? To warn him that Mr. Kaplan was off limits for this?!”

“I tried, Liz.”

_“Not hard enough!”_

“Come on, Liz! That's not fair!.”

“That's not fair?! That's not fair? What's not fair is that Mr. Kaplan tried to help us and you just stood by and did nothing to save her!”

“You weren't there, Liz. I was on thin ice myself. We aren't all you, Liz! We don't all get unlimited free passes from Raymond Reddington!”

“He killed Mr. Kaplan!”

It was the wrong thing to do and the wrong time to do it, but Tom hit back. “What did _you_ think would happen, Liz? If things went south what did _you_ think Reddington would do? Wag his finger at her and say don't do that again? You're naive, but even _you_ aren't _that_ naive!”

Tom pointed out to Liz. “This whole thing was Mr. Kaplan's idea. You know, as far as I'm concerned, Mr. Kaplan got herself killed!”

He knew he was going too far even before he finished saying it, but the look on Liz's face when he was done left no doubt.

She couldn't even stand to look at him. “You know, for the longest time, Tom, I thought that Raymond Reddington was the toxic one in my life. The one causing _everything_ to go wrong.” With such despair on her face, Liz asked him. “But what if he's not the only one? I need you out of my life, Tom.”

“Liz no!”

“Please go, Tom. I can't have you here anymore.”

The fight gone out of him, Tom tried to apologize. “Liz -”

“You need to go, Tom.”

“Liz, just wait. Liz -”

But having heard the raised voices and the magic words 'Tom' and 'go' Baz and the other guard of moment weren't having any of it. “You heard the lady.”

Tom raised his hands in the hopes that they would lower their weapons and give him a little time to reason with Liz. “Don't push me away, Liz. Please.”

“Mr. Kaplan is dead, Tom. Because of us! I can't do this anymore, Tom. I can't have you in my life anymore. Unless our daughter comes back into our lives … I just can't do it. I want, I need you out of my life.”

As Baz used the nose of his gun to prod him toward the door, Tom promised her. “Until … _until_ our daughter comes back, Liz _._ Not unless - _until._ ”

_OOO_

Using the distraction of Tom being thrown out of the front entrance, Liz went to the back door and ordered the guards there. “Go help Baz. I want Tom out of here.

As they left – no doubt eager to help get rid of a person they knew to be a thorn in Reddington's side, she cautioned them. “ _Don't_ hurt him, but get him out of here.”

_OOO_

Only mostly confident of the reception she would get, Liz knocked at the door hesitantly.

“I couldn't stand being in that warehouse anymore and I didn't know where else to go.” Liz admitted.

Donald looked at her and then past her into the hallway. “Does Reddington know that you are here?”

“No. I escaped while his goons were distracted.”

“Come on in. I was just watching television.”

Liz entered enough so that the door could be closed and then hung back as Donald hurried to tidy up some of the bachelor clutter.

“What were you watching?”

“Oh ...” Ressler froze. “ … Nothing.”

From where she was standing, Liz couldn't see what was on the tv screen but watching Donald pick up the remote and frantically hit buttons to try to turn the screen off, Liz was suddenly horrified as she wondered what he had been watching that he was so desperate for her to _not_ see.

Seeing her expression, Ressler caught on. “Oh. No. No!”

Apparently deciding the truth was less embarrassing than what she was imagining he confessed. “I was watching the last season of Downton Abbey.”

“You were watching Downton Abbey?”

“What can I say? I'm a big fan. That Dowager Countess is pretty bad ass.”

Liz smiled. “Well you can't be that big of a fan if you are only getting to the last season now.”

“It's a rewatch.”

Liz couldn't help it. She started to laugh … And then she started to cry.

“Hey!” Moving closer, Donald wrapped his arms around her. After leading her to the couch, he asked. “What happened?”

“Reddington killed Mr. Kaplan for trying to help me get away from him. Kirk doesn't have Agnes anymore. Kirk is dead.”

“Who has Agnes?”

“I don't know.” Was all Liz managed to get out before burying her face in his shoulder to cry.

OOO

The clothing she had arrived in was stained with her dried blood. The clothes he had changed her into were women's but they weren't new with tags.

She should have felt cleaner out of her soiled garments, but she didn't.

Some of the new-to-her clothes, she could still smell the faintest traces of perfume from the former owner – or more likely owners. Most women who wore perfume had a single, signature scent that they wore. They didn't usually vary their perfume. Her new black skirt and pink blouse might not have clashed in color, but they didn't match in scent

_tbc_

 


	7. Rainy Day People

_Chapter 7 Rainy Day People_

Ressler opened the door, but only part of the way. He put his foot behind the door to brace it so it couldn't be easily pushed open further. “What do you want, Reddington?”

“I know Lizzie is here.”

“What did you do? Implant a tracker in her?”

“No.” Reddington admitted. “I took a chance. Lizzie doesn't have very many friends. I bluffed and you just confirmed it.”

“Maybe she'd have more friends if you stopped shooting them.”

Reddington almost looked pained at the barb but Donald wasn't buying it. “What kind of a man shoots a seventy something year old lady – an _unarmed_ seventy something year old lady?”

“Not a good man.” Reddington admitted before changing the subject. “Now are you going to send Lizzie out or are we coming in to get her?”

“She just finally cried herself to sleep – and by the looks of her it's the first sleep she's gotten in weeks. I'm not waking her up!”

“Donald, I'm not leaving Lizzie here. It's not safe.”

“Keen is safer here with me than she is with you.”

“Donald, I am through arguing with you and I am not leaving Lizzie here unprotected.”

Reaching into a bowl by the door, Donald grabbed a set of keys and threw them to Reddington. “Across the hall.”

Before closing the door in Reddington's face, Donald ordered him. “Feed the fish.”

OOO 

“Is he gone?”

Donald nodded.

“Thank you.”

“Believe me, getting rid of Reddington was my pleasure. I should get you something to sleep in.”

Not ready for him to leave yet – not even for the next room, Liz reached out and grabbed his hand to stop him. “Not just for that. For everything. For listening to the whole story about Reddington and Mr. Kaplan and Vanessa. For not being angry – or at least not as angry as everyone else with me about what I put you all through by faking my death.”

Sitting back down, he stroked her arm. “Hey, it's better than the alternative. Besides, it's not exactly like it's the first time Mr. Kaplan faked your death.”

She put her head back on his shoulder where it had been before Reddington's interruption. “Yes, but at least that time the whole team was in on it.”

He didn't say anything and Liz caught it. Picking up her head, she turned to look at him. “What?”

He admitted. “I was on Capitol Hill testifying. They couldn't get a message to me before the story broke.”

Lizzie was horrified. “Oh Donald!”

“Hey, it's like I already said -” Ressler's expression froze.

“What?” Liz asked again.

Ressler's brow creased. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

Liz stared at him, not following.

“This is going to sound crazy, but hear me out. Kirk is dead. Agnes is missing. Cruz claims she didn't take Agnes and you said you believed her. Cruz also said Mr. Kaplan has Agnes but Reddington says that's not possible because he killed Mr. Kaplan.”

Liz nodded. “Where are you going with this?”

“What if _everyone_ is telling the truth or what they _think_ to be the truth?”

Donald moistened his lips. “Mr. Kaplan seems pretty good at faking people's deaths. She knows what Reddington is like. She knew what was coming.” Donald paused before suggesting. “Could Mr. Kaplan have done something to Reddington's gun? Altered it somehow? I don't know, put blanks in it?”

Liz was skeptical. “You really think Mr. Kaplan faked her own death?”

“What's good for the goose is good for the gander, right?”

Donald raised a finger and threw out another idea. “Or maybe Reddington tried and something went wrong - somehow, she survived. Maybe Reddington missed the shot – I've got a scar on my leg from our run in with Anslo Garrick that says Reddington isn't the crack shot that he thinks he is.”

Donald pointed something else out. “You said that before Vanessa threw the acid at him she said an eye for an eye.”

“Yes.” Liz agreed. “And she said it again later when I was taking to her."

“You're the hot shot profiler – or at least you were before Reddington came along. Profile what Vanessa did.”

When Liz just stared at him and didn’t say anything, he prompted her. “Think about it. You said she didn't come at him with a gun or a knife. Going after someone with acid ...”

Liz took over. “Vanessa wasn't trying to kill Reddington ... “

_OOO_

Liz pounded on Donald's neighbor's door.

As soon as Dembe opened it, she brushed past him into the room to confront Reddington.

“Mr. Kaplan _has_ Agnes.”

Reddington looked more sad and frustrated than angry. “Don't start that again.”

“She does.” Liz insisted.

“I told you – Mr. Kaplan is dead.”

“ _No_ , she's not. Cruz saw her. Cruz saw her _after_ you shot her.”

Reddington shook his head. “That's not possible.”

Glaring at the scratches on Reddington's face, Liz asked. “Where did you shoot her?”

“I told you, I brought her into the woods. Into the middle of nowhere.”

“No, I mean ... where _on her_ did you shoot her?”

Reddington refused to answer.

Head down, his brow furrowed, Dembe confirmed what Liz had started to suspect. “He shot Kate in the face with the Browning.”

Looking and sounding if possible even more distraught than earlier, Reddington cried out. _“I told you to wait at the car.”_

Solemnly, Dembe answered. “I did.”

“Vanessa didn't come at you with a gun or a knife. She wasn't trying to kill you. She was trying to _disfigure_ you _._ That's what Vanessa meant when she said 'an eye for an eye'. Mr. Kaplan is alive.”

Shaking his head, Reddington looked stunned. “I shot her from less than ten feet away.”

“Did you check her?” Liz asked taunting him. “Did you put a few extra slugs in her to make sure she was dead?”

Reddington didn't answer. Quietly, Dembe did. “Elizabeth, Kate is dead.”

Dembe wouldn't look at Reddington. “A few days later, after I left Raymond at the church – I went back for Kate. To bury her.”

“No!” Elizabeth didn't want to give up this last bit of renewed hope for Agnes … or Mr. Kaplan. “I want to see! Take me there! Now!”

_OOOOOO_

Elizabeth found it unnerving to be back here standing over her own grave.

Reddington hadn't helped to bury Mr. Kaplan and he didn't help to unbury her.

Together, Dembe and Ressler worked quickly to remove the first few feet of dirt, but more slowly, more carefully as they got deeper.

Reddington wouldn't even watch. He was just standing off to the side staring at the adjacent grave markers.

“She's still here.” Having unearthed her, Dembe had reached his limit. Leaving her wrapped, Dembe and Ressler climbed out of the grave.

Burying her, the careful wrapping, those were signs of remorse. Dembe's remorse. Not Reddington's.

Donald touched her shoulder. “I'm sorry, Liz. It was a stupid idea. I shouldn't have gotten your hopes up.”

Tears beginning to silently stream down her face, Liz looked at Ressler pleadingly. “I have to see.”

“Don't.” Dembe warned her.

But Liz told Donald. “I have to.”

With a hangdog look, he climbed back down into the hole.

Getting a good look once Donald had unwrapped the shroud, Elizabeth turned to vomit and sob.

Mr. Kaplan's face was gone. She was recognizable only by her clothes and her haircut.

Ressler waited until she stopped retching to ask. “What do you want to do, Liz? Do you want me to rebury her here or bring her somewhere else? Just tell me what you want.”

His tone pleading. Dembe objected to the idea of moving Mr. Kaplan. “No. Leave her here. I brought Kate here for a reason. This is where she belongs.”

Turning to glare at Reddington, Liz found him still staring at the statues on the other nearby graves. “What I want is for him to look at her.”

Ignoring her, Reddington just kept staring at the two angels – one big and one small.

 **“Look at her!”** Liz demanded.

When Reddington shook his head, Liz lunged at him. She grabbed his already injured face and tried to make him look.

Dembe didn't try to stop her.

Climbing back out, Donald was the one that grabbed her. He held her as she sobbed and glared at Reddington.

“Look at Mr. Kaplan! I'm not leaving here until you do!”

Reddington met Liz's eyes. He nodded.

He looked down at the open grave. His face was almost, but not quite expressionless. He stared for a full minute and then he tilted his head. He stared another minute before he put his hands over his eyes and made a sound like a laugh – maybe it even was a laugh.

Liz felt physically repulsed.

Removing his hands from his eyes, he sighed and his expression brightened as though a tremendous burden had just been lifted.

_“Oh my dear, dear Mr. Kaplan.”_

Liz and the others just looked at him in horror as he started one of his soliloquies.

“It's an old wives tale that a person's hair and nails continue to grow after they are dead. They don't. Kate explained it to me once. What happens is that the skin recedes making more of the hair and nails visible.

“She's about the right height and weight and this is the outfit she was wearing but …” Reddington cocked his head to the side. “ … Since when was Kate a blond?”

“What?” Stomach turning, Liz forced herself to look again. There was maybe a quarter, not even a half inch of hair at the roots that wasn't brown. “It's white.”

“Is it? Is it white?” Reddington asked peering down. His smile momentarily faltered.

Liz dismissed Reddington's comments. “Mr. Kaplan colored her hair. Her roots are showing.”

Reddington stared another minute with that faltered look before jumping down into the grave himself.

“What are you doing?” Liz cried out as Reddington untied Mr. Kaplan's scarf and began undoing the buttons of her jacket. “Stop that!”

“Raymond!” Even Dembe protested as Reddington moved on to unbuttoning her blouse.

“I do at times use hollow point bullets and I told Dembe to wait at the car so he would have no way of knowing, but I didn't use the hollow points on Kate.”

Aghast, Liz again asked. “What are you doing?”

Pulling open Mr. Kaplan's blouse, Reddington checked her side. The skin was mottled but Dembe had wrapped her so tightly that the decay and insect activity were still relatively minimal. “There should be an old bullet scar _here_. The first time I met Mr. Kaplan, someone had just shot her in the side.”

He tugged the fabric down her shoulder. “I tried to finish her off. I only managed to graze her before she got the upper hand, but I _definitely_ left a scar.”

Reddington sounded manic as he picked up Mr. Kaplan's wrist and tugged up the cuff of that sleeve. “There's no scar _here_! There _should be_ a scar here. Mr. Kaplan always wore long sleeves - even in the summer - to hide it but I've seen it.”

“So? She went to your buddy Abraham to have cosmetic surgery to lessen the scars.” Liz reasoned.

Reddington continued to undress her. “There should be a scar _here._ Kate was admitted to the hospital in preterm labor. The doctors were able to save the baby, but they kept Mr. Kaplan there at the hospital on bedrest for the rest of the pregnancy. I think that's when she – _understandably_ – developed her aversion to hospitals.

“A girl her age, unmarried, with no parents she would speak of, the hospital director must have thought Mr. Kaplan would be easy pickings. He had promised a wealthy donor a healthy, white newborn for his wife.

“The couple had a six week holiday to Europe planned. They wanted a newborn – not a two week old or a four week old when they came back. The baby still wasn't full term, but the day before they were scheduled to leave, the director performed an unnecessary c-section on Kate. He _cut_ the baby right out of her to give to them.”

Liz couldn't keep it together anymore listening to the litany of scars detailing brutal acts committed against Mr. Kaplan – brutal acts that had culminated in one final act perpetrated by her supposed longtime friend.

“The police found the bodies, but it was before DNA. Dom and Mr. Brimley had taken a couple of baseball bats to them. At the inquest, the coroner admitted that he ended up tossing a coin to decide which one to release as the husband and which as the hospital director.”

Liz recognized one name, but not the other.

“And there should be another bullet scar _somewhere_ in here. I'm just not sure where.” He began running his fingers through Mr. Kaplan's hair, lifting it up in sections to examine her scalp. “When I saw her to return Annie's ring, they had her whole head shaved and bandaged. The next time I saw her, her hair had grown back in.”

Not content with his current vantage point, Reddington pulled Mr. Kaplan to a sitting position and stepped into the space he had made behind her.

He rambled as he crouched down and searched the back of her head. “Katarina blamed herself, but it was my fault. They were looking for Annie to send me a message, but Kate and Annie were a package deal.”

There might not be the scars that Reddington was expecting, but there were other marks. Bite marks. Some kind of animal must have been at Mr. Kaplan's body before Dembe had buried it.

“I always said to Kate that I would believe she was actually going straight when she stopped carrying around the Smith and Wesson that she stole from Dom.”

Liz was just having trouble putting together why Mr. Kaplan's clothing hadn't looked disturbed before Reddington got to her. Dembe might have tried to fix her up after finding her, but shouldn’t there have been scratches and tears in the material?

“Most criminals can't stop. Whatever reason they start, they can't stop. They can't help themselves. They get addicted to the excitement, the thrill. That's how I knew you and Tom could never work out. Because he would never be able to give up the life he always knew to settle down.”

Dembe must have changed her outfit – but no, Reddington said that that was the outfit she had been wearing.

“Kate was a rare bird. She said she would stop and she actually did.”

Giving up his search, Reddington let Mr. Kaplan's hair fall back in place.

Liz didn't bother to point out that whatever missing scar Reddington was looking for on Mr. Kaplan's head was probably on the piece of the back of her skull that he had blown off when he shot her in the face.

Reddington didn't seem to notice the macabre spectacle he made as he let the dead woman's body lean against him. “They were calling for a white Christmas that year. Annie didn't do well in the cold anymore because of her arthritis. Mr. Kaplan wanted to get out before the storm so we had an early Christmas. So that Carla and the girls wouldn't see it, Kate put the 586 in with the god awful sweater Annie picked out for me.

“They shot two unarmed women in the head to let me know that they were serious about wanting the fulcrum.”

Carefully returning the body to a reclining position, Reddington seemed to regain his earlier pep as he addressed the mottled coloring on the torso and neck. “And where is all this bruising coming from? Kate hit Mato with the car, she didn't get hit by one.”

Reddington shook his head. “Given the circumstances, I can understand Dembe not realizing, but this _isn't_ Mr. Kaplan. This isn't even Mr. Kaplan's work. This is too sloppy.”

Donald asked. “If that's not Mr. Kaplan, who is that?”

“That ...” Reddington shook his head. “... I don't know.”

Ressler pointed out a troubling fact. “Look at the edges of the gunshot wound. Whoever this was, this was done while they were alive.”

That put a damper on Reddington's new found joie de vivre. “That's not Kate's style.”

OOO

He never asked her name.

Little girl. Pretty lady. Sweetheart. _City mouse._

There were things that he did ask her.

“Won't your mister be worrying about you. Wondering where you are?”

Following his gaze to the band on the ring finger of her left hand Mr. Kaplan answered truthfully. “No. I have been on my own for a long time now.”

Uneasy with his continued focus on her ring, she repositioned her hands to rest on her lap with her right hand covering the gold band.

“Children?”

“No.” Mr. Kaplan looked away. “Not anymore.”

_tbc_


	8. Race Amongst the Ruins

_Race Among the Ruins_

Back at the Post Office, Reddington was holding his hat in his hands fidgeting with it. He kept running his fingers along the brim.

“Harold, I would like to borrow a few of your people. Agents Ressler and Navabi should do nicely.”

“Where are we going?” Elizabeth asked.

“Not we.” Reddington corrected her. “ _You_ are staying right here until I figure out what we are dealing with.”

“Where are _you_ going?”

“Where do you usually go when you lose something important to you?”

Aram half raised his hand. “Usually, I go to the last place I remember having it.”

With an unconvincing smile, Red gestured to Aram. “There you have it.”

Aram blushed. “That was a rhetorical question, wasn't it?”

Ressler clapped him on the back. “You think?”

“Where is that?” Liz asked.

Ressler chimed in. “Yes, where exactly is it that you left an unarmed seventy-five year old woman for dead after having shot her in the face?”

When Reddington named the national park, Cooper commented. “That's a very large tract of land to search. Aram, put it up on the screen.”

“No!”

Cooper, Reddington, everyone looked to Aram.

“I'm going to abstain.”

Cooper looked at him baffled. “From putting a map on the board?"

"From helping to find Mr. Kaplan."

Cooper frowned.  "You can't abstain.”

“Agent Navabi abstained from going to Cuba to help look for Liz.” Aram explained his reasoning. “Mr. Reddington tried to kill Mr. Kaplan. I'm not going to help to find her just so he can do it again.”

Liz hadn't thought of that. She turned to look at Reddington with suspicion.

He denied it. “It was a fit of pique. A childish impulse. Like when a parent calls you out for doing something wrong and you do it all the more. The moment has passed. I'm not going to try to hurt Kate – Mr. Kaplan again. I need to find her. I just want to talk to her. I need to _know_ that she is safe.”

He didn't come right out and say it, but Reddington had been deeply troubled ever since the medical examiner Liz had called to the scene had dismissed the idea that the marks on the woman Dembe had buried as Mr. Kaplan were made by an animal.

They were all troubled – especially Dembe. If he had caught the switch this search would have been started months ago.

“Do you promise?” Aram asked.

“I give you my word.” Reddington seemed sincere.

“Okay.” Aram relented and brought up the map.

Taking out his phone, Reddington pressed a few buttons and took a few steps away. Her suspicions raised by Aram's suggestion, Liz followed after him to listen in.

“I need to see you and all the girls right away. I am going to send the plane to pick you up.”

_“Sorry, Red. The girls have kennel cough.”_

“Kennel cough? What is that?”

_“They can't travel. Some other time.”_

When the caller hung up without so much as another word, Reddington took the phone from his ear and just stared at it in his hand for a moment.

Turning back to the team, he informed Harold. “We're also going to need some dogs.”

Cooper took off his glasses. _“_ It's been two months. What are you hoping to find there?”

“I don't know, but the place I brought Mr. Kaplan to – it wasn't the kind of place where someone would just happen by her as they were passing through. Besides … “ Reddington admitted. “ … do you have a better idea?”

“You're going to need something with her scent on it - an article of her clothing. Do you have that?” Harold asked.

“No, but I know where to get it.” Reddington admitted solemnly. “Dembe and I will meet Agents Navabi and Ressler there at the service road entrance.” _OOOO_

He returned to the cabin with freshly killed rabbits in one hand and freshly picked flowers in the other.

“Thousands of acres of forest. What luck that you were left here for me to find? I mean - what were the chances?”

Mr. Kaplan couldn't help but wonder that herself.

“Very fortunate.” Mr. Kaplan agreed.

She didn't like to talk. Talking caused problems. Talking got you into trouble.

Her voice was naturally gravelly sounding, but to keep him from expecting her to talk much she let him think otherwise.

Bringing the flowers over in a old tin can, he set them on the table by the bed. Running his thumb along her jawline uninvited, he asked her. “Are you ready to tell me why someone would do something like this to such a sweet, delicate thing like you?”

She wouldn't allow herself to flinch or pull away from his touch. She tried to keep things simple. “I used to be his cleaner – his housekeeper. I found out things about him that he can't have anyone else find out.”

“He's a criminal.”

Wordlessly, she nodded.

_tbc_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N Reviews are greatly appreciated.  
> Read No Rest For the Wicked if you want to know where Reddington goes to retrieve a piece of clothing belonging to Mr. Kaplan.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N Reviews are greatly appreciated.


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